Steam Client for Linux

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Gawd
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Mar 21, 2003
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When Steam finally releases a version for Linux, will it include Wine built-in? Or are we just going to have to hope Wine and Steam will work together to play games? Is the other hope that developers port games to Linux?

I'm a big fan of Linux, but trying to get an idea of how Steam is going to work before I dump my last Windows machine.
 
Obviously the idea is to run games natively.

Datapoint: The OS X client doesn't include WINE.
 
Wine and Steam work together and have been working together for a long time.

eloj said:
Obviously the idea is to run games natively.

Datapoint: The OS X client doesn't include WINE.
Click to expand...

+1
 
Its not going to be built with WINE in mind..(or a requirement) so that means that library of games will be small, very small. Valve games plus a few choice ported titles. Also, my understanding is that zero, nada, no DirectX Windows games will run on Linux without being completely rebuilt and ported onto OpenGL, a platform that was abandoned many years ago.

To me, Steam in Linux is just silly but Valve and Gabe are treating it very important because they need that market to survive in the future. Windows 8 is shipping with the Windows Store built right in, basically trumping what Steam trys to accomplish and direct from MS. Doesn't help that MS is offering all existing Windows users to upgrade to Windows 8 for $39, which is going to saturate the market and result is mass adoption rates.. and fast. Valve will do any and everything to downplay the importance of Windows 8 and at the same time try to champion the idea of Linux gaming.

Gabe is just the pied piper playing his tune and hoping his loyalists will follow him blindly. I like Steam, I enjoy the platform and I like that they are trying to support Linux. But its futile, and I dont suspect much if any software support on that front at all. Going forward most games are going to be ported to and from Windows 8 -> Next Xbox using a unified SDK that makes porting software even easier than today. Developers, or rather.. publishers are not going to allow developers to waste time rewriting entire games to run on OpenGL so that a few niche consumers can play the game.

Some games will come, but it will be few and far between. By the time the platform has any real chance of picking up speed, the Windows Store, and WinRT applications/games will be full steam ahead. (pun intended)
 
theNoid said:
Valve games plus a few choice ported titles. Also, my understanding is that zero, nada, no DirectX Windows games will run on Linux without being completely rebuilt and ported onto OpenGL, a platform that was abandoned many years ago.
Click to expand...

OpenGL abandoned?! I guess only Microsoft platforms exist in your world, because EVERYONE ELSE is using OpenGL.

publishers are not going to allow developers to waste time rewriting entire games to run on OpenGL
Click to expand...

Also, that's not the effort required, and also those games are most likely already OpenGL if they run on anything more than a MS platform.

You clearly know nothing about gamedev.
 
eloj said:
OpenGL abandoned?! I guess only Microsoft platforms exist in your world, because EVERYONE ELSE is using OpenGL.



Also, that's not the effort required, and also those games are most likely already OpenGL if they run on anything more than a MS platform.

You clearly know nothing about gamedev.
Click to expand...

Apparently neither do you.

Most games are either platform based (specialized API), or Windows Based (X360 + PC). And I'm sorry to say that we either have propetary API and DirectX here. OpenGL is not being used in alot of game dev shops except a select few. Which means, "EVERYBODY ELSE" (which is why there are no games on these other platforms) does not exist. Yes. OpenGL has been abandoned for gaming.

If Steam is going to bank on Linux and openGL, we need more than Indy games and these select few to make it worthwhile. Chances are, with Linux being such a small market, big game dev shops are not going to be doing anything. It's hard enough to get PC games these days, now change Windows to Linux and... Enough said. Apple has been a solid platform since the dawn of time, and just how many of these games work on Apple or have been ported to Apple? None.

It's the chicken and the egg, and at this point with the big budget productions, nobody is going to risk putting their eggs into the OpenGL/Linux basket.
 
You're basically saying that OS X, iOS and Android do not exist, and have no games.

Clearly you are deluding yourselves.

Last time I checked (before the latest sale, granted), about 40% of the games in my Steam library have a native OS X version. This includes big titles like Civ 5, which according to you guys a) does not exist and b) is not a "big budget production".

I don't think I have anything more to say to you, it's fairly pointless to argue with people who selectively ignore 200 million devices or whatever we're up to now.

PS.
Diablo 3 doesn't exist. Neither does WoW.
 
theNoid said:
Its not going to be built with WINE in mind..(or a requirement) so that means that library of games will be small, very small. Valve games plus a few choice ported titles.
Click to expand...

Thats the idea. Porting over some of the best pc games in the last 10 years to run natively in Linux is an amazing step to making gaming in linux more accessible. Right now if you sat the common pc user in front of linux and said "play this game", I doubt he would be able to figure it out on his own.

Also, my understanding is that zero, nada, no DirectX Windows games will run on Linux without being completely rebuilt and ported onto OpenGL, a platform that was abandoned many years ago.
Click to expand...
So thats steam's fault right?

To me, Steam in Linux is just silly but Valve and Gabe are treating it very important because they need that market to survive in the future.
Click to expand...
What the fuck are you smoking? The Linux "market" is so small that you can hardly even call it a market. This is being done entirely as a good will project for the community.

Windows 8 is shipping with the Windows Store built right in, basically trumping what Steam trys to accomplish and direct from MS.
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Microsoft did SO well with Games For Windows right? :rolleyes: Whens the last time you bought a game from the Games for Windows marketplace?

Doesn't help that MS is offering all existing Windows users to upgrade to Windows 8 for $39, which is going to saturate the market and result is mass adoption rates..
Click to expand...
Well, thats it then. Steams going to have to give up because a new operating system is coming out. I mean good thing that Steam hasn't been around since Windows XP right? Its too bad they don't have a programming team who probably already has the W8 steam client ready to roll out.

Valve will do any and everything to downplay the importance of Windows 8 and at the same time try to champion the idea of Linux gaming.
Click to expand...
Again, more sensationalism.

Gabe is just the pied piper playing his tune and hoping his loyalists will follow him blindly.
Click to expand...
Do you really think that Gabe is trying to get people to switch from windows to linux? Really?

I like Steam, I enjoy the platform and I like that they are trying to support Linux. But its futile, and I dont suspect much if any software support on that front at all. Going forward most games are going to be ported to and from Windows 8 -> Next Xbox using a unified SDK that makes porting software even easier than today. Developers, or rather.. publishers are not going to allow developers to waste time rewriting entire games to run on OpenGL so that a few niche consumers can play the game.
Click to expand...
You are missing the point of the linux port. It isn't to get developers to redevelop games to retrofit opengl in, its to make the games that valve develop available to people across all platforms.
 
Personally I think this is a long term play, basically valve imagines that google success in the mobile space might translate to laptop / desktop and since googe is running linux more or less getting in there early will make them ready. Unfortunately for valve nothing matters because all possible options google, apple, microsoft run their own stores and will make those core parts of all their OS before long.

So the only option left is some valve linux console but that would be hard to pull off well.
 
The question is, will all the Linux nerds who use it give them shit because it is not open source?

I hope they do. NVIDIA gets it.
 
The sooner they can get people developing for Linux the sooner they can start selling companion cube gaming systems w/o having to pay licensing fees for an.OS. :p
 
Gabe seems to get it - there are a huge number of Linux preferring users out there who still spend time in Windows primarily because of gaming - a much larger "killer app" for the home user than just about anything else. Something I wrote in another thread...

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Status:
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There is a much larger audience than many think. There are many like myself who prefer Linux, but use Windows as well for certain things, gaming being one of the largest. Though it has become increasingly easy to game on Linux, there are still many who stick to Windows for their games they can't get to work well enough with CrossOver or WINE. The more games that run well on Linux, especially native, the less a reason for many to boot over to Windows. So there are plenty of people who would game on Linux full time if all their games worked there, but still show up as being Windows users in player/dev metrics and whatnot.

Looking at Humble Bundle, IndieRoyale, Indievania, Gameolith and especially Desura, desire for Linux games is high and Linux gamers are willing to spend for high quality products that cater to their needs (No DRM beyond key-checks and the like etc...). Humble Bundle metrics have shown that Linux users often volunteer the most, almost twice as much as Windows, even with their smaller though significant numbers. The indie community does well when supporting Linux and even many well known games make a lot of revenue from Linux users -World of Goo, Trine/Trine2, Machinarium, Amnesia:TDD, Savage, Heroes of Newerth, Oil Rush, Vendetta Online, and of course Minecraft.

I'm a fan of Desura, ModDB's "steam-ish" client that offers one click purchases, management, and install of both games and free mods, which has a Linux client. Not all the games sold on Desura have Linux versions, but the comments section of those that don't are often filled with variations of "Will there be a Linux version and when?). Kickstarter projects often make Linux compatibility a hallmark if the project reaches a certain funding level and when users ask what they want for many game projects, Linux (and to a lesser extent, Mac) come close to the top of the requests.

Steam on Linux as far as I can tell, so long as it has feature parity with the Windows versions, can only be a good thing. Even better if, as rumored, it will include some sort of WINE/Crossover help so users can try to play their Windows titles in their Steam account on Linux. Steam arriving on Linux will show many of the more wary and larger developers that it is a platform to be considered. Users spending time on the Linux version and buying games there will only provide a snowball effect showing that Linux is a prime destination for games. If it doesn't have a huge following right out of the gate Valve loses nothing and only stands to gain over time. They will need to understand that though there will be many new fans in time, many of us existing Linux users already have Steam accounts and run the Win/Mac version and games from there (even when we try to run it on Linux!), so hopefully big publishers won't be looking for a day 1 rush of NEW accounts and whatnot, but I think Valve is smarter than that. However, I'm fairly sure that games to offer Linux compatibility will be amongst the best sellers and Steam will be installed in many a desktop distribution.

Steam on Linux has been a long time coming and there are lots of fans already waiting, so I can only predict good things..and possibly great ones! The more "open" gaming becomes, dispatching with proprietary, locked down, platform specific tools, the better it will be for us all. Steam on Linux is an important part of that, encouraging a developer to think "Hey, if I want to release it on Linux and Mac Steam clients, it will just be easier for me to use OpenGL. Once I've done that, I can even bring it to Android, iOS and elsewhere if I wanted

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Lots of indie, small and medium developers have been investing in making "Linux friendly" titles, from all out Linux clients to building their titles with open tech that will make it easier to run in WINE and port to Linux at a later date (owing in a part to cross-platform desires in the mobile space like iOS and Android, as well as OSX to a lesser extent.). Steam on Linux will likely be a huge push to bring in major developers (and sadly more important, publishers) to thinking of Linux for their games. As a sidenote, it will mean likely less draconian DRM as Linux users just won't take it and technically it can create problems. Finally, it will be as Gabe hopes, a popular alternative 3rd party repository for buying and playing games, as opposed to Win8 and OSX attempting to lock down everything in a first party store, it seems. I have no doubt that many Linux distos will add Steam to their repositories both traditional and "App Store-like", alongside Desura, furthering their popularity.

This could truly be an awesome development!
 
eloj said:
You're basically saying that OS X, iOS and Android do not exist, and have no games.

Clearly you are deluding yourselves.

Last time I checked (before the latest sale, granted), about 40% of the games in my Steam library have a native OS X version. This includes big titles like Civ 5, which according to you guys a) does not exist and b) is not a "big budget production".

I don't think I have anything more to say to you, it's fairly pointless to argue with people who selectively ignore 200 million devices or whatever we're up to now.

PS.
Diablo 3 doesn't exist. Neither does WoW.
Click to expand...

Woah woah...lets get some actual perspective here...

If 40% of your steam library is OSX compatible then you have a very small and bias sample size. Going to steam search and searching an empty term with PC as the OS you get 5051 games (this searches all DLC packs etc), if you search Mac only you get 628, assuming approximately the same amount of DLC for both platforms there's approx 10x more games on the PC than Mac on steam.

I don't think anyone is saying Mac OSX or even Linux have no games, they just have a market so small that basically no one really wants to cater for it. The situation is chicken and egg and the only way break through that is for someone to stick their neck out, Valve are in almost unique position to do that because they're privately owned and have loads of spare cash to throw around so can invest in luxuries for gamers with little or no guarantee they'll see future ROI from it.
 
most games are developed in linux and then ported to microcrap.
I wish all games were on linux then no one would buy that pos os.
 
Having Stream's weight thrown behind Linux is great news. I for one, will use it natively and only switch to windows for titles not supported, which if Valve keeps pushing Linux, and Microsoft fees stay higher, should be less and less as time goes on.

We shall see...
 
Steam isn't likely to do much for Linux gaming. The problem has never been lack of distribution. Linux has two big problems, with regards to getting more games:

One is technical and that is the shit graphics situation. The only way you can get full, modern, graphics support is with the nVidia binary drivers. They have OpenGL 4.2, they are fast and stable, and all the features work. Other than that, you are SOL. The AMD binary drivers are quite problematic, and the OSS drivers are way behind. Hell Mesa is only up to GL 3.0 (4 years out of date). This means big problems for games. Ask Mozilla about the graphics issues just in terms of getting hardware acceleration for Firefox in Linux. That creates a lot of problems for games. I mean if your game is something old school with 2D graphics then sure use SDL and call it good. But new games have a hell of a time supporting a wide range of hardware in Linux due to the 3D situation.

The other is mentality. More than a few Linux users feel all software should be free. Sometimes they mean open source only (which games aren't going to do) but often they mean no cost. They have just decided that they don't want to pay for things or that "Information wants to be free man!" Regardless it is a heavy culture of not wanting to pay for shit. That is a problem for commercial software. If a company spends $250,000 in porting, testing, and supporting a Linux release and then gets only $100,000 in Linux sales, they aren't going to be very interested in doing it again.

So really Steam for Linux isn't likely to change much. It won't hurt for sure but I can't see it helping much. Ports cost money, companies will only invest in them if there is likely to be ROI and I don't see that happening in Linux.
 
sparks said:
most games are developed in linux and then ported to microcrap.
I wish all games were on linux then no one would buy that pos os.
Click to expand...

That has to be the most ignorant comment made on this site in a long time, and that is saying something.
 
People who say that there is a huge linux community are blind. When apple blew up in popularity it killed the linux community for all practical purposes. When netbooks failed to bring linux to the limelight it was just the last nail in the coffin we all knew was coming.

I can only think of like 2 people I know in real life who still use linux, all the rest of the people who used to use linux now sport macs, and if they have a mac they are just going to buy the games for macs.

With google and apple as serious competitors now there is just no significant market for linux in the consumer space. THe people who want alternatives for MS have them in google and apple. To me the only reason valve could be doing this is because they forcast a desktop OS by google and this could be getting something ready so they can quickly bring a client to market. The other possibility is some valve console.

Look at it practically even the linux people here admit they all use windows for anything that does not work in linux. You guys are rare people and the average person who has a job and a family isnt going to waste time switching between OS versions, they are going to just leave windows running if it works.
 
This is a good step in the right direction. Personally I would LOVE to be linux only.
 
rudy said:
People who say that there is a huge linux community are blind. When apple blew up in popularity it killed the linux community for all practical purposes.
Click to expand...

I don't know anyone who abandoned Linux for Apple. Why would anyone who uses Linux switch to Apple?

Linux has skyrocketed in popularity due to Android. Smartphones and tablets are going to keep getting more popular. Linux is now as popular as Windows, and it's gaining ground. So is Apple. Windows is going to be number 3 in a few years.
 
I dont consider android to be linux any more than I consider windows to be DOS or OSX to be UNIX. Fact is the companies need a base to start with just so they can get up and running cheap. They use it then immediately start separating. Every one of them of course tries to say nice things to linux fans and pretend they are part of the community to increase support and sales, but its all PR BS.

It isnt good for linux, and linux proponents do their community harm by trying to pretend that google or anyone else gives a shit about them or is part of their community. They are just using open source as a back to break as they step on it to climb up as soon as they get a hold of their market they separate completely. But anyhow good luck with the wishful thinking. Linux will always be what it is now, nothing more than a random niche OS of tinkerers and people who need something free to work with. If you dont know anyone who abandoned linux for apple you live in a very small or secluded world. Of about 40 people I know who used to use linux I can only think of 2 left who have not switched to macs.

When steam goes to linux there will be now flood of new linux users, jsut a handful, and then of course some of the people who always used linux will be happier / using windows less.
 
theNoid said:
Its not going to be built with WINE in mind..(or a requirement) so that means that library of games will be small, very small. Valve games plus a few choice ported titles. Also, my understanding is that zero, nada, no DirectX Windows games will run on Linux without being completely rebuilt and ported onto OpenGL, a platform that was abandoned many years ago.

To me, Steam in Linux is just silly but Valve and Gabe are treating it very important because they need that market to survive in the future. Windows 8 is shipping with the Windows Store built right in, basically trumping what Steam trys to accomplish and direct from MS. Doesn't help that MS is offering all existing Windows users to upgrade to Windows 8 for $39, which is going to saturate the market and result is mass adoption rates.. and fast. Valve will do any and everything to downplay the importance of Windows 8 and at the same time try to champion the idea of Linux gaming.
Click to expand...

I don't know about you, but making Windows such a closed platform where all the application must come through Windows store is something I hate. That's just not right for PC.

I mean seriously, are we entertaining the idea of having absolutely zero competition in online distribution of PC games in the future?:confused:
 
AFAIK no one is saying that windows is a closed platform, in fact unlike android you wont even need to check some setting to allow outside applications, everything I have tried to install in windows 8 does so without problem or need for the store. But the reality is similar to how many people here see steam. Once average consumers start using the windows store they arent going to want to install various other stores when a single one will have most of what they need in a single consolidated location. I personally avoid games that are not on steam, it is not that I am merried to steam but just that I dont want to mess around with 50 different launchers etc.. The competition will always be there, just like even for android you can have the amazon store but eventually, much like itunes the competition does not mean much because people find the price difference is not worth the inconvienience.

That being said I expect that within the next 5 years we will see some major lawsuits surrounding this issue, who ever is on top, be it android windows or apple (unlikely) will be the target of antitrust violations.
 
eloj said:
And here's why porting games is good.
Click to expand...

Slightly weaksauce article. No specific mention of testing parameters short of hardware. (that I could find) What resolution? Graphics settings? Were they like testing 640x480 or something? 303.4 FPS on Windows vs. 315 FPS on Linux is more-or-less insignificant short of the fact that the Linux-based optimization is pretty impressive. Or is that basically what they are trying to get at: with proper optimization, the Linux peeps should at least see decent/equal performance vs. Windows? :confused:
 
Look, the importance here is NOT on DX vs OpenGL nor the actual FPS or FPS delta. If you came away with that from the blog post, I'm going to go out on a limb and say; sorry you came away with the wrong point.

(reposting): The FPS numbers are only used to illustrate how far they've come with the port, and that it's viable (but we all knew that already). The important point is that software porting should be seen not primarily as a 'cost', as is so often the case, but as an investment in software quality and lessened technical debt.

Porting to linux and OSX makes games better, drivers better and ultimately maybe even the operating systems themselves better. It's all win, even if you're a die-hard Microsoft fanboy.

It drives me mad that everyone is reading the blog post and coming away with all the wrong "points".
 
eloj said:
Look, the importance here is NOT on DX vs OpenGL nor the actual FPS or FPS delta. If you came away with that from the blog post, I'm going to go out on a limb and say; sorry you came away with the wrong point.

(reposting): The FPS numbers are only used to illustrate how far they've come with the port, and that it's viable (but we all knew that already). The important point is that software porting should be seen not primarily as a 'cost', as is so often the case, but as an investment in software quality and lessened technical debt.

Porting to linux and OSX makes games better, drivers better and ultimately maybe even the operating systems themselves better. It's all win, even if you're a die-hard Microsoft fanboy.

It drives me mad that everyone is reading the blog post and coming away with all the wrong "points".
Click to expand...

Explain yourself?

Pretty sure that porting to consoles flucked the PC gaming industry rather than help us. Not sure why linux / OSX is better. Shoot just look at valve their ghetto engine is so old now. The thing is porting is just that porting. Not optimizing etc.. Now devs invest more in porting and less in developing and that makes the games worse on average not better. You can make alot more money opening your market to say OSX gamers than you can making a new game with a new engine or you can by optimizing your current game. The golden age of gaming was when MS had a total death grip on internet gaming. When consoles came in things got messed up and the more platforms devlopers develop for the more fragmented and senseless games become. Look at UT, a game that was great in the engine dept but more important was the UI which was progressing, then they ported to consoles and the UI which used to be where UT really shined above its competition was stripped to almost nothing, the server browser was pathetic. How is it that we are losing functionality instead of gaining more if the competition and extension to more platforms is good for gaming?

Here are the facts porting to linux is good for linux and that it, no one else. Drivers might get better for linux but they might get worse for windows.
 
The golden age of gaming was when MS had a total death grip on internet gaming.
Click to expand...

I'm sorry, between you and the extremetech idiocy... I can't be bothered any more.
 
eloj said:
Porting to linux and OSX makes games better, drivers better and ultimately maybe even the operating systems themselves better.
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In some cases. Depending on the manner in which the abstractions are done to accommodate operating against different sets of APIs, however, they can make things somewhat worse for Windows users. Abstraction has costs.

I doubt this is the case with Valve, since they're a more-than-competent group of developers, but just sayin'.
 
I just hope this takes off very well. I'd much rather spend the ~$100+ I spend on Windows towards games on Steam, especially when a sale comes through that could be a pretty hefty lineup.
 
eloj said:
And here's why porting games is good.
Click to expand...

Linux / OGL:
3.1746 ms/f

Windows / DX
3.6900 ms/f

Difference
0.5154 ms/f

So when the FPS isn't so inflated, that difference could mean you'd get 57 fps instead of 55.4 fps. It's still a nice chunk of free time, but not a stomp like some people seem to think the numbers indicating -- and they said they'll be looking into mitigating the performance margin for the DX path as well.

The way they describe it, it looks like the DX9 driver overhead is where OGL manages to eek out the win; OGL draw calls were cheaper until DX10+ came around. If Valve decided to drop the legacy shit and have a proper DX11 path, they'd probably have plenty of performance benefits to reap.
 
What's the problem? It's a good thing for Linux in general for a high-profile developer to put some effort into supporting the platform (despite what that GNU guy was moaning about). Meanwhile, if you don't use or ever intend to use Linux, great, it doesn't affect you at all.
 
theNoid said:
...without being completely rebuilt and ported onto OpenGL, a platform that was abandoned many years ago.
Click to expand...

Yeah, OpenGL is a dead API, only used on anything that doesn't have Microsoft's name on it.

Playstation 3, Nintendo hardware, iPhones and iPads (arguably the market with the most explosive growth in games), Android devices, UNIX and BSD operating systems, all using OpenGL.

It is pretty darn popular, forget about it even being "abandoned".
 
Is Steam not going to work in Windows 8 or something? I get that expanding to more platforms can only help Steam but the doom & gloom about Win 8 and Steam - I don't get.
 
JayteeBates said:
Is Steam not going to work in Windows 8 or something? I get that expanding to more platforms can only help Steam but the doom & gloom about Win 8 and Steam - I don't get.
Click to expand...

Gabe calls it a "hedging strategy". I guess in case people start getting their games through the MS store, maybe Valve will try to roll out their own console to make up sales.

Or in case MS pulls the plug altogether and eventually forces their Win RT model on Win 8. In which case Valve is dead in the water.

"Hedging strategy."

You have to be one step ahead of the game to survive.
 
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